[JURIST] The government of Sudan said Thursday that it will appeal a US court verdict ordering it to pay $7.96 million in compensation to the families of 17 US Navy personnel killed in the 2000 al Qaeda attack on the USS Cole [Wikipedia backgrounder; US DOD inquiry report; JURIST news archive]. Sudanese Justice Minister Mohammed Ali al-Mardi denied that Sudan bore any responsibility for the bombing and said that, as a sovereign state, it could not be tried in a US court. The families had sought $105 million for pain and suffering, but the federal Death on the High Seas Act [text] limits compensation to only economic damages.

In March, Doumar held Sudan liable for the attack a day after the plaintiffs introduced expert testimony [JURIST reports] from four witnesses that al Qaeda could not have accomplished the bombing had Sudan not supported the terrorist organization. Reuters has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

International Day for the Elimination of Racial
Discrimination

March 21 is the International
Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination [UNESCO
factsheet].On March 21, 1804, the
Code Civil des Francais, the reformed French
civil law often referred to in French as the Code Napoleon, and in
English as the Napoleonic Code, went into effect in France, Belgium,
Luxembourg, and French colonies.

March from Selma begins

On March 21, 1965, Martin Luther King, Jr. began
his third march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama to protest racial
discrimination in the Jim Crow South. By March 25, over 25,000
people lead by Dr. King reached Montgomery, Alabama. Specifically,
the march called attention to suppression of African-American voting
rights and a police assault on a civil rights demonstration three
weeks prior.Five months
later, in August 1965, Congress passed the Voting
Rights Act. Read a history
of the march from Selma to Montgomery and a history
of the Voting Rights Act.